Jain Journal 1986 01

SR No.: 520081
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Jain Bhawan Publication
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication
Publication Year: 1986
Total Pages: 55
Language: English
Classification: Magazine, India_Jain Journal, & India
File Size: 4 MB

Page 14

JANUARY, 1986
(pratiksetram bhinnah)63 and thus, individuals are born and die at different times, their actions and experiences are diverse in nature and so on.
There cannot be absolute identity between jiva and Brahman because, in that case mundane world of different individual selves will be impossible to conceive on account of inseparability of jiva from ever liberated supreme Brahman. It also cannot be said that ātman seems to be different on account of bodily adjuncts but essentially one, because, in that case, just as after destruction of a pot its space is also freed, similarly, when body is destroyed every one will be liberated and no need of means of liberation, consequently no one will try to achieve this goal and whole science of liberation will become purposeless 64 and theory of karma, rebirth, etc. collapse to the ground.
If it is said that, on account of samskäras (impressions) every jiva is not freed immediately after destruction of the body and becomes object of transmigration then the question is whether these samskāras of individual jiva are specio-temporal or all-pervading like eather. If they are limited by space and time, then the man died at particular place, to say at Citrakuta must born in the same place, because samskāras cannot travel from one place to another being inactive and unconscious (because of product of un-conscious avidyā). Samskāras cannot also be all-pervading because in that case, no place and no soul, even liberated, will be free from clutches of all-pervading samskäras and these samskäras might bring liberated man back to this mundane world. So, it is not possible to prove the oneness of souls and it is more wise and practical to accept the view of plurality of selves. 65
To sum up, Jainas point out that Advaitin's arguments that reality is one without a second, on account of māyā this world appears as many (vivarta) and this appearant world disappears after destruction of māyā and realisation of Brahman, and fravana, manana and nididhyāsana are the means of liberation, are meaningless like description of the barren woman's son, because the existence of non-dual Brahman or ātman cannot be proved by any available means of knowledge.66
** P.N.T., VII, 56. 64 S.M., p. 1095. 65 S.M., p. 1095-6. 66 S.S.P., p. 7.